ABSTRACT
Introduction Most sources of information on Native American history provide very limited information on sports.1 In fact, most of what academics, journalists, or bloggers recently have written about Native Americans and sports has to do with demeaning images of Indigenous people that sports mascots often communicate. Much of the scholarship on this topic is excellent.2 Indeed, teams such as the National Football League franchise in Washington, DC, defiantly continue to brand their products with extremely offensive nicknames and imagery, despite repeated objections and pleas by Native American activists to remove the monikers. As important as it is to critically examine demeaning appropriations of Native American imagery, an exclusive focus on this topic can tend to overshadow other, more complex and dynamic stories of Indigenous Americans as actors within their own sports histories. Native people of the Western Hemisphere have a sports heritage that dates back over the course of centuries, and is, in many respects, far older than that which European Americans “introduced” to Indigenous societies in the late nineteenth century. Indigenous sports cultures continue to thrive in the Americas in ways that are vibrant, creative, and sovereign.
